


Two Hours

by kerning



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Animal Transformation, Artist Keith (Voltron), Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Explicit Sexual Content, Gay Keith (Voltron), M/M, Trans Keith (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:02:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27186956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kerning/pseuds/kerning
Summary: The words are vapor against skin, petrichor in his lungs as their foreheads pressed together. Keith took up all of his vision.
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	Two Hours

**Author's Note:**

> Hello hello, it's been a minute for Voltron, hm? Well, if you want the full story of why Lance is how he is, check out The Paladin Chronicles. This is a side story so TPC can keep its rating lmao! You can find a little soundtrack [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/158nmGUXqVGy0OO9GPELi5) if you feel so inclined!

Tonight was a first—Lance had never once entered through the door.

One small step and all that.

Blocked in part by the outline of Keith’s shoulder before him, evening streetlamps cast golden bars through the blinds of the window, highlighting the scratches Lance’s talons had left on the sill and cascading over the dresser drawer. Open like a trundle bed and stuffed with an old hoodie, one sleeve dangled from the drawer’s edge, a messy tell remaining undisturbed in Keith’s usually messy bedroom. Well, bedroom slash office. Disoriented in the darkness, Lance watched Keith’s back as he withdrew from Shiro’s desk lamp, the pull chain tapping out a metronome rhythm against its base. The room suffused with warm light. He’d made a valiant effort in cleaning.

<Expecting company?> Lance impulsively thought-spoke out of habit, yielding a ping-pong moment of Keith’s eyes assuming Lance’s perspective severely lower and infinitely more intense. He regretted nothing following the unabashed wave of satisfaction. <Just for little ole me, you shouldn’t have.>

“I didn’t—use your words.” Recovering to tilt his chin up to meet his gaze, Keith snorted at the mental _okay_ Lance replied with in spite of himself, cutting tone softened by dry amusement.

A swell of affection caught in Lance’s throat but he swallowed it down, discarded in the pile of observations cataloged under adorable shit he’d never give voice.

“Stay if you want.” A question in an offer.

“I’ve got time, free as a bird really,” Lance said, totally cool and casual and not at all hyperaware of their circumstances when Keith lifted one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug, the storm cloud brewing on his brow set in place.

Certain of how steady he managed to keep both his mouth shut and his thoughts to himself, Lance did a double-take having almost never seen Keith’s bed made. But there it is, comforter stretched over the mattress with pillows settled at the headboard safe and innocent from the mangling Keith usually treated his pillows in sleep. How many times had Lance flown in, nestled into the quilt at the foot of the bed and “talked” Keith’s ears off?

Old habits die hard. Only when he dove, splayed across the bed the mattress springs protested his weight—a sharp contrast to his former solid two pounds—and as he spread his wingspan, no, limbs over the patchwork quilt, soft even with its little tears, he froze stretched out like he’d decided to make a damn snow angel in the middle of Keith’s bed. Heh, awkward. Nothing was the same. And a slow fear wound its way into his brain, silly. But dismissiveness wielded it all the more persistent, nagging and awful—maybe Keith liked him better as a hawk. Lance scrabbled for the words to play off his mindless actions but as an exasperated sigh blew sideways from Keith’s mouth, they dropped to static.

“Dammit, Lance. What are you doing?”

Eyes up to the popcorn ceiling, Lance let the sea of all the parts of his personality he kept hidden lap at his ankles, the insecurity of being judged pummeling the bruise of two single words. No one who had ever known him was exempt from the sentiment. _Dammit Lance_. No matter who spoke, it always meant the same thing. He was too much.

“Nothing dude, my bad, uh, seemed more comfortable than a drawer.” Lance propped up on his elbows, taking in the high of Keith’s slightly pink tinged face, certain he’d never garnered that reaction as a bird. He snapped into a sit, angling all his weight into a lopsided smirk.

“Not that I mind you in my bed but I asked you up here to make out.” Keith’s shoulders hunched in, his posture at odds with the tips of his reddened ears. Cute.

“You can never be too careful.” Lance nodded, the threat fresh in his mind of sitting on the downstairs couch missing the heat of Keith half in his lap when the harbinger of Shiro’s jangling keys had the lock tumbling open to a greeting strained and prickly—from himself and Keith, respectively. At least Shiro wasn’t here tonight. “Effective immediately I’m done starfish-ing all over your blankets.” He shimmied a little to make his point.

One eyebrow shot up. “That’s what you’re calling that?”

Lance fired back a winning smile. “Yup. C’mere.”

Perfect bullseye. But Keith balked at direct orders, ornery as usual. “You come here.”

A challenge to a blatant stare-off, a battle for the ages until exactly three seconds later Lance bounced once. Up and off and stepping forward in a saunter, he slipped on uneven footing, overcorrecting his balance to the tune of ripping paper.

Lance dropped to his knees, the cover of the sketchbook partially torn, graphite drawings peeking from beneath and he uselessly gathered the torn sheet halves together. The book barely in his hands before Keith snatched it back made its absence known and Lance sated his palms with Keith himself in little touches, his apology in small pecks melded into deeper, the kind that usually left Keith’s hands in the cotton of his shirt sating his own brand of mercy. Partial as it was, Keith had a hand behind his back, on guard in keeping the book out of reach only peaked his curiosity. The only Keith he wanted was one who came to him willingly and this was no different.

“You know,” Lance began, gleeful in darting for quick kisses. <I still want to see.> As they parted, helpless against the irrepressible grin mirrored in mischievous resignation, Lance can only name Keith’s eye roll as fond.

“Here.” He flicked to the first page and passed the sketchbook, retreating his warmth to a safe distance. What an unfair trade.

Mouth a pleasant tingle, Lance nearly surrendered to the urge to return to what really mattered here as Keith completely stepped away, but sue him, he’s nosy.

In the past, the hidden way Keith had at his arrival hunched over each sketchbook, stuffed it between the mattress and box spring, well, Keith was quick like that and Lance’s hawkeyed vision never allowed more than a peek without guilt. He took in each page like a gift, careful with the first few pages, crumpled as they were. Studies of people, a sporadic amount of his motorcycle which at present sat dormant in front of the narrow townhouse. Ballpoint pen and graphite, a bright swatch of ink or sparse coloured pencil highlighted Keith’s penchant for people. Organic shapes wove in between the negative space of figures, both connecting them all through this melting, shifting link and cordoning them in isolation. Keith had dedicated his time, dedicated as was his signature all of these observations a recording for posterity.

“These are so cool.”

Back turned, Keith grunted in acknowledgement. Leant over the desk where he’d powered on Shiro’s laptop, Keith entered the password, clacking away at the keyboard as if he was breaking into the Pentagon.

Lance shuffled through pages, then stuck at a standstill. And Pidge stared back with owlish eyes, Shiro without his scar, then with it as if Keith had accepted the change, Allura with a certain dignity suiting her but no less beautiful and Hunk with a gentle smile. A tenderness overcame him, how Keith interpreted each of them. But even with his admittedly garbage eyesight, Lance noted the imprint of a ghost left on the page, a face that might have been his own.

Keith’s gaze flickered over his shoulder. “What’s your time?”

The disappointment laid heavier than it should. More than he’d considered it. Not being even on Keith’s radar as a blip didn’t just sting, it hurt.

“Lance?”

“Hm, what?” At his wrist the telltale warmth of his cheap diver’s watch grew a shade uncomfortable. Keith repeated the question and he shook his head, setting the sketchbook aside. “Yeah, I lost track.”

As he focused on the hawk’s body, Keith’s _what would you do_ —muffled in the whisper overtaking his hearing of the internal squish-pop of his body shifting— _without him_ went unsaid but Lance had no idea and he didn’t want to find out. His ears popped and chill music filtered past his brain fuzz, shimmery vocals over deep bass and lower still the hissing crackle of the computer speakers mixing into the whirr of the machine.

Glancing at the sketchbook before picking it up, Keith sat next to him on the mattress, his weight dipping its surface. “You made it this far back.” He carded thru the pages, not looking at him while drumming his fingers in a halting rhythm. Keith fell back against the comforter, one knee drawn up to brace the sketchbook as he flipped through it. “I did this stuff forever ago.”

<It’s really good, that the last page?> Lance hawk-walked closer and with one solid peck tapped at the paper, because when had he ever been able to help himself?

“I had a lot to get out of my head.” Keith chewed the inside of his cheek, turning the sketchbook around so he could see the next spread.

It wasn’t a sketch. A red-tailed hawk froze mid-dive in ballpoint pen, navy blue and so deeply rendered it seemed blue-black in its shading. The level of detail and depth sent a little shiver within him, how Keith saw him. Like with most things in this body, he couldn’t express how pleased he was with anything but words.

<Holy crow, that’s awesome.> He stretched one wing mimicking the pose without smacking Keith lest he disturb his tiny smile at the praise. <Captured my good side and everything.> Lance tutted at Keith when he moved to settle down with the sketchbook, affecting the sound of a game show buzzer. <Wait a sec, let me bask.>

Keith full on laughed and the drawing wavered in the force of his mirth while the pendulum of Lance’s focus swung between it and Keith’s sparkling eyes, his face laced with colours he had no name for because humans could not see them. Affection bubbled up, effervescent happiness suspended in the moment. Reaching out, Keith ran his fingertips through the feathers at the back of his neck, the gesture soothing.

All at once Lance could have thrown his patience out the window if not for the harsh reminder of what happened the last time he morphed consecutively. <Ok, I’m cool—what else you got?>

“There’s this one…”

They flipped through the book, more of the Paladins, one page in particular of their team as superheroes sparking an argument. The level of Keith’s voice escalated and at this point Lance disagreed to be contrary, if only for the bizarreness of this verbally one-sided argument broadcast to the neighbors beyond the shared wall. They moved on, lingering on some pages longer than others. Keith lounged on his stomach, comfortable in sweatpants and Lance stretched forward to the hair hanging haphazardly in his face to nudge it back into place, the urge to kiss him for his talent and bravery grew stronger with each passing moment. Just five more minutes.

Keith turned the page.

And then all thought pared to simplicity. If Keith had taken a taken a photo of him, he would remember but as he looked at the drawing, not quite a mirror because the more he looked the more he decided art wasn’t about capturing a perfect likeness but it was Lance, seeing himself, in the simplest of terms in graphite. The contours of his face were gently shaded like he’d been determined to get it right. Reflect the best of him.

Keith prodded him with a finger, his own name reaching past the giddy whirl of an emotional rollercoaster.

<It’s just something special.> _You’re something special._ Had it been five minutes, whatever, close enough. He hopped off the bed, landing on the detritus covered floor and focused on himself, ten fingers, ten toes. And a mouth, he needed that too.

Keith peeked over the edge, a real flattering HD view up his nose but ended up looking away as Lance shot up in height. Morphing was always different and always, always gross. Except for Allura and Pidge but if it was a girl thing, Lance wasn’t asking. He had two sisters. Feathers melted into clumps, forming smooth brown skin, perfectly moisturized thanks. Some part of him was relieved Oriande pimped out his OG self-morph with like clothes and all but also, screw Oriande. It was the same outfit every time. Jeans, t-shirt, olive jacket. At least he could control it a little better now and not have to toe off his shoes in the middle of the room.

He shrugged out of the jacket, tossing it over a bedpost before sliding next to him. “Babe, it’s so good, put this in the Louvre!”

“You’re only saying that because it’s you.”

“Am not!” He was totally saying it because it was him. “Come on, tell me I don’t deserve a spot next to DiGiorno.” Lance held up the sketchbook for comparison, wiggling his eyebrows and pulling a face far removed from the serious expression in the drawing.

Keith smiled at the joke. “For sure you belong in a freezer.”

“Hey, only cause I’m cool.” Angling the paper, light caught the even sheen of the graphite. “Jeez, when did you snap a pic of me, very sneaky.” He set the sketchbook in his lap, about to ask if he could keep the drawing when the question fizzled on his tongue.

“I didn’t.”

 _What._ “What?”

Keith’s brows lowered, the little wrinkle scrunching up his nose as he blinked in confusion. “I didn’t take a photo?”

“Come on babe, did you deep dive into my old Instagram account?” Lance joked, the lack of reaction spiking his heart rate, motion to take off his jacket aborted once he realized he already had. “You can be honest.”

Keith glanced at Shiro’s computer, dropping his shoulder in a low effort shrug. “Takashi might have accidentally liked one of your photos. But this, no.”

Here’s the thing, Keith doesn’t lie. So when Keith looked him dead in the eye like a challenge, like a dare to sever their connection a chill washed over Lance.

“At the rec center. I just looked at you.”

Pretty sure he won’t spontaneously combust but it’s a near thing. Lance could go out in a blaze, not swinging at noble sacrifice for the greater good but at the sheer audacity of Keith to overwhelm him on multiple levels. He’d thought of him. And looked at him. And somehow came to this foregone conclusion, determined out of every facet of Lance this was worth capturing. Oh no, he might be flying.

It took a hand resting on his thigh to bring him back to earth. “I love—” Before impact, Lance caught himself on the updraft. Overeager killed him in the past and still his words rushed together. “—I lo-like you so much for doing this, thanks for showing me.”

Nice save.

“Hm, I lo-like you too.” Searching his face, Keith propped up to eyelevel.

The words are vapor against skin, petrichor in his lungs as their foreheads pressed together. Keith took up all of his vision. He breathed in. <Human eyes suck,> Lance whispered, eyes dropping to his out-of-focus mouth. “But you look better blurry.”

Keith parted from him just enough distance to pierce him with a flat look, colour high in his cheeks. “Shut up.”

<Shutting.>

Keith hauled him in, fingertips cold as they grazed his jaw, leaning into the half-moon shape of that first kiss. Hand curved over his nape, Lance suppressed a shiver as fingers wound, carding through the wavy hair there. Almost gentle. Keith lurched forward and their teeth clacked together. Ow. Keith’s awkward laugh ghosting his cheek dissolved into puff of breath as Lance peppered his cheeks with kisses, placing the sketchbook aside. Time limit forgotten, Lance kissed him slow.

Whatever he wanted. Whatever he could give.

Lance hindered none of his exploration by Keith’s thin knit sweater in coursing up the flat planes of his body, solid and real beneath his palms until he had a true lapful of Keith, well, in his lap. He brought this on himself willingly.

Overheated, Keith yanked the sweater over his head, hair a fluffy mess and the nub of his ponytail near given-up in the worn out grasp of its hair-tie. Keith had probably been born needing a haircut. Lance reached up and clawed out the snarled tangle. Keith thanked him without words, trailing his lips over his jawline, his neck. Lance captured the scent of his shampoo, not conditioner. Because Keith was a heathen. Proved it in licking a narrow stripe up the column of his neck. Teeth nipped his earlobe, press of his mouth shivering want against the shell of his ear. Scooping Keith close, his back muscles flexed against his forearm, chest to chest as their breath comingled in the space between.

Not close enough.

Keith pushed, pushing and pushy, thin tee-shirt clinging to his frame as Lance gripped the material and fell backward, tipping into the many shrouded angles Keith occupied, centered heavy in his lap and vision. An unbroken loop. All perspective really. From here, Lance shuddered, interrupted by the unpleasant impalement of mortification before memory arrived. In perfect forgery, Keith’s silhouette had been a perfect grind, the television’s cold blue light flickering beyond him, insignificant in how soon he had been overwhelmed, only recourse in covering his burning face with both hands, an afterimage of Keith, silent _oh_ frozen on his parted lips impressed behind his eyelids. <Wait,> Lance said, hands narrowed tight on his hips, breath hitching in Keith’s subtle shift. “Give me a sec.”

Though he stilled, solid astride him, a hint of a challenge drifted into the curve of his kiss-bitten lips. Lance kneaded his fingertips against his waist, then grazing his sides in a ticklish wave, netted a giggle though Keith schooled his face stern but it was more cute than anything, batting his hands away. “Quit it.”

That hot wash of prickling embarrassment faded. Satisfied in the goofy kiss he smacked against his lips, Keith confided easy and guiltless he hadn’t really wanted to just make out.

“Called it.” Lance wriggled in order to help, easing his wandering hands which sought to prize him from his shirt.

Divested and debauched, soft sigh as his bare back fell against the wrinkled quilt, most welcome, more important and pressing, Lance lowered his hands, resting them on the curve of Keith’s ass. At his pouty look, he gave an idle squeeze as their hips rocked together. Keith followed him down, that soft bundle grinding against him, soft sighs filling him out in turn. Palm weaving the humid air between them, goosebumps trailed in its wake, touches trailing over his skin, skittered and skipped, teasing in the direct way of urgency only Keith could possess. Like this, squeezing at the outline in his jeans. His hips rose unbidden.

Keith cursed under his breath and Lance sank his teeth into his bottom lip refraining from echoing. He’d never hear the end of it.

Instead he raised a single brow. “You good?”

“Yeah,” Keith huffed, mimicking his expression without conviction like a funhouse mirror as his face reddened then parting enough to writhe out of his pants and packer. Likewise the soft snick of Lance’s button, the zipper growl a precursor to joining his crumpled sweatpants on the floor. “I want you.”

Oh, he had him. For so long, Keith, his arms looped around his neck, posed slim to none chances, and so Lance set aside craving an affection beyond him, to reciprocate anything. And wasn’t it a reversal, held and pinned, no escape and content. Kindle to the cant of his hips.

But now, separated and tumbled, slung backward with the force of gravity as two stars meant to coalesce if time would only allow it, wandering hands pulled overhead his tee—Keith chose to be an onion, who only rolled his eyes at the genius comparison. In savoring the revealed trail of hair against Keith’s stomach, freed him open-mouthed all the same in straying up his midline, strong hands returning their grip on his shoulders. Held fast, captured in wonder, their noses brushed and in exchange, save stealing the air from his lungs, Lance fixated on each touch. Indulged, really. Underneath Keith he mattered in every literal sense, corporeal, bound to reality where they aligned split by damp cotton. Maybe his exhale pushed reckless in the downturn but this underwear situation had to go.

Much better.

“Back or front?” Lance hummed when he agreed to the latter though as Lance pushed away to rifle through his fallen jeans for his wallet, Keith grumbled aloud, swearing.

“Like hell I’m trusting some weird Oriande bullshit.” He threw a single square at him from his bedside drawer.

He doesn’t mean to bare such intent. But damn. “Can I, can I blow you?”

“Uh, yeah. If you want.” His compliance ushered a sigh as much petulant as unsure, face pinched in a rare way. “No one ever offered before.” He rose and dropped one shoulder. “Take what I can get.”

Okay, yeah so in this singular case between the two of them, Lance would be the one most likely to throw the first punch. Pity for lack of a proper target. “I’m so honored to be your scraps.”

“You’ll do I guess.”

But there’s no one to fight, not here, and for once his mouth doesn’t run off to his inclination for a corny joke—rather Lance placed all his affront into the task at hand, up and over, squeezing at his hip.

No one had ever complained yet. And at least, Keith didn’t seem to be the first.

But Keith’s smirk faded however when Lance detoured to kiss a path down his happy trail. He pressed a kiss to his inner thigh, taking a little pity for a direct route to his core. Drawn in, drawn out. He could take his time for a while. Callus-worn, Keith’s hands wove insistent pressure to the crown of his head, cozy in the kind of warmth hot enough to brand. _Yours_. With every bit of pressure, yours. Keith’s likes and dislikes anchored in the curl of his tongue. An endless feedback loop, blunt nails rasped against his scalp divided by half with every sigh and swear muffled—Keith had pressed a hand over his mouth.

<Nuh-uh, I want to hear you.> Greedy, preoccupied and half-tempted to maneuver him to ride his face, Lance reveled in Keith’s ability to follow instructions. Short-lived as Lance kissed him open-mouthed and messy, his thighs clamped over his ears. <Ah, ease up—I like my head attached to my shoulders!>

Riding out his orgasm splayed and perfect, Keith batted him from placing a tiny peck against his damp skin. Keith brushed the hair stuck to his face off his forehead. On his palm held bite marks embedded into the skin, deep indents a token of his efforts. “Okay.” Slipping against his side, Keith’s legs were still shaking but a weak half-suppressed laugh passed his lips as he gathered his breath. “Let me, uh, take care of you too.”

His taste lingered—slightly bitter. Not completely horrible. Just like him. Lance daubed his chin on the corner of Keith’s thigh, prim as he pleased. Which was terribly.

“Your turn.” Keith pawed in languid gestures after the space he occupied. Though when he caught his expression, he glared. “What?”

“Hm, nothing, just, I could keep going.” Lance’s grin widened, overhearing many a Keith-styled threat, even received a few, but his mottled blush was pure evidence.

Had he ever been more endeared?

“Not me you should be worried about.” Keith snorted, his prickly words ushered a challenge but his grip lit about thirty different beacons within him, both warning and relief all at once. “You sure _you_ can hold together?”

“Ah, trust me.” He pushed back but Keith didn’t bother to give him the satisfaction of cooperation. 

Oh no, he played dirty.

“Need a minute?” Solid and warm, so warm, and so gone above him, Keith’s smile skewed lop-sided. He didn’t so much rock as lift-drop into his lap. “You look a little unsteady to me.”

“With your bony ass, I’m fine.” Reaching up, Lance maneuvered his hips from their harsh unrelenting pace to meet in the middle.

“Wuh—you’re such a cocky asshole.” Keith glared. “I’ve never been so dry in my entire life.”

Well, that was a lie.

Keith ran an angry line in blunt nails over his arm and how could he not want him more? He flipped them over, hovered and relished their moans in stereo. Against the juncture of Keith’s shoulder, where his talons had marked a favored perch, unscarred like the missing evidence of all Keith’s frequent care he’d shown in time. No, he needn’t the traces. With every gesture, perhaps subtle once drew obvious. He rocked his hips with more purpose. Keith freed his lower lip hostage, a faint purpled bruise at its center. So stubborn. _Mine_. He nipped at the column of his neck, marking up his place, his spot, on his neck and shoulder. They would fade, just as the kiss-bruises on his own skin. Like this, pressed affection to hold his hips, Lance jessed to their slow wind.

<I’ve got you.>

How Keith dragged from his throat, babbled in the way only he could affect him, direct from his heart in reciprocating the font of good poured from the shallow well Lance once claimed in lack drew deeper still. How he wanted. Near him, inside him. He uttered his name as tenet into the hollow of his neck.

How each little sound, the tensing bowl of his stomach pushed him closer. Mincing nothing. How his grip against his forearm a tight echo of a blood pressure cuff. His unshakable belief in everything from greatest movies to fighting the Galra. Faith in him by extension.

How Keith’s pulse rabbited against his own in tandem. How blunt half-moons decorated his back. How his name became more syllables than it contained. He loves him. He ran a palm up his side, and Keith hiked his ankle higher, pressing their angle deeper. All of him. The neighbors were acquainted with him by name now.

Let them hear.

As long as Keith’s blush rose to the apples of his cheeks only to descend and spread over his chest. Too much in the best of ways. Soft music faded in heartbeats, to relative silence where their harsh breathing could unwind in time. Sweat dried between them until Keith spoke.

“Holy shit.” Half-collapsed on each other, Keith fingertips grazed at his nape.

Not a bad way to spend two hours.

After cleaning up, Lance face planted next to his pillow. Keith curled into the divot of space where he felt the words rasped more than heard: “I really like you too.”

A stark and bracing chill raised goosebumps despite how his words warmed. “I should hope so.” Lance arched a brow, playing it off.

“You said—never mind.” _What had he said?_ The shape of Keith’s face gone indistinct in nearness edged into clarity. His brows knit together, fell into natural place. A singular expression. Fond in spite of caution. “In case you were wondering.”

Yeah, as he touched him for the few moments he could spare. Maybe he had been.

**Author's Note:**

> You know, I should have utilized Lance being able to talk while giving oral more,,, maybe next time. Ha. Thanks for reading!! I am mostly on [twitter](https://twitter.com/maisoncavalier) these days! All comments and kudos, even if I can't think of a response, please know they are appreciated and encouraging!


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